You really do get to dance with everyone, possibly multiple times. You're generally in the same place at the same time all weekend.

Choices can be limited at any given time, and if a given session doesn't appeal it may be possible to go play tourist in the local town without feeling like you're missing out.

If the weekend is primarily made of people local to the area, you can get a real feel for the community, or dance with people in your community that you normally wouldn't because one of you is booked or you're usually in a different line or what-have-you.

There's a somewhat more intimate feel because you end up spending all your waking time with, by and large, the same overall group of people.

There can be a lack of choice in programming -- smaller weekends' venues are only so big. This can be good in that while passing the time before something you know you will love, you can discover something cool by proximity.

Other thoughts, for either large or small weekend experiences? Sound off in the comments!

Steve and I have been talking lately about the differences between the experiences of larger dance weekends and smaller ones. While we've had lots of fun at small weekends and big ones alike, a lot of the conversation has been about how they really are different experiences. Sure, they both include lots of contra dancing and seeing old friends and making new one and having new stories to tell, and both can be lots of fun. But there are also differences that make the two experiences different. For instance, at larger weekends:

You get to see lots and lots of people you might normally not see because they're usually geographically separated -- bigger weekends tend to draw people from lots of different locales.

There are lots of different choices of what to do at a given time during the day -- if you're too tired to dance, you can go listen to folks jamming down the hall.

You get opportunities to dance with new partners all the time.

Frequently, the bigger festivals/weekends encompass other dance and song forms as well -- blues, morris, shape note singing, swing dancing, and Appalachian clogging are examples of other sessions I've seen at bigger weekends.

It can be difficult to get a dance with a particular partner you don't get to see because "find me" may not be a successful strategy amongst several hundred people on-site. But you do to dance with lots of other people.

This project has concluded as of mid-2013 (with an epilogue posted mid-2016) but we hope to see you soon on a contra dance floor! Meanwhile, head over to our Facebook page for upcoming techno contra events and other items of interest.

Author

I dance with abandon. I play with glowsticks. I look for music that is conducive to one or both. I play behind cameras. I write about all of the above. I'm based in Glen Echo's contra dance community outside of Washington, D.C., but I'm happy to go dance afield when I can. Lather, rinse, repeat. Always repeat.